The Moderators, The Candidates, The Reaction – Top 3 Takeaways – September 11th, 2024
- The moderators. One of the biggest storylines ahead of presidential debates is the role that moderators play in a debate. Moderators are like referees and umpires. If we come out of debate talking about them...there’s a problem. And much like the first debate there were plenty of concerns for team Trump and his supporters heading into this debate. According to the Media Research Center, ABC’s World News Tonight program featuring David Muir and Lindsey Davis, the debate moderators, had provided the most biased news coverage of any network. In the MRC’s study, from July 21st when Kamala Harris entered the race, through September 6th, 100% of the coverage of Kamala Harris was positive. During the same time 93% of the news coverage of Donald Trump was negative. As I mentioned in yesterday’s takeaways there have been several notable examples of blatant anti-Trump bias by Muir and Davis, alongside many blatantly pro-Biden-Harris examples by both of them within their news coverage and in interviews. For these reasons it was reasonable to wonder 1) How would the questions be framed? The answer was inconsistent but significantly one-sided. The line of questioning was pointed in both directions at times – though often aimed at keeping Trump on the defensive. Also, unlike in the first CNN debate, the moderators regularly interjected their idea of fact checking, but only against Trump. The moderators “fact-checked” Trump 5 times to 0 for Harris and that wasn’t due entirely to Harris’ accuracy in answers. 2) Would the focus of the questions be on the issues that matter to us or to the moderators (January 6th, threat to democracy, yada, yada)? The answer was that the early focus was on the issues that matter to us economy, abortion, border before turning hard to January 6th, threat to democracy and election denialism. All things that mattered that the moderators and the leftists seeking to aid Kamala Harris’ campaign. 3) Would Kamala Harris be properly pressed on her lack of public access since becoming the presumptive Democrat candidate, her failure to provide comprehensive policy plans so that Americans may better understand what it is that she stands for, and for her stated flips flops on key issues and known positions that she’d articulated and voted for as a senator and vice president? Only mildly. Harris was pressed on her flip flops. She was not meaningfully pressed on her lack of access or transparency on the evolution of her stated policy positions 4) Would the moderators let the candidates speak during their allocated time or would they intervene and/or cut off mics during a candidate’s time? Yes, they did for the most part. Early on they did leave Harris’ mic on for while Trump was talking allowing her to cut him off. On balance this debate wasn’t moderated as the first CNN debate was. The moderators routinely interjected, but one-sidedly and they did become part of the story. There were numerous times when the debate took on a feel of a 3-1 matchup with Trump competing against everyone in that room.
- The candidates. Could the non-battle tested Kamala Harris stand up to scrutiny and the far more seasoned presidential candidate in Donald Trump for 90 minutes? Yes, with the assistance of the debate moderators, she did. Would Donald Trump be able to stay on message or would he engage in personal attacks which Harris was hoping he would do? No, he often didn’t stay on message. He started out well in this regard on the economy – which was the high point of the debate for him. From there he often played into her hand. Would Kamala cackle as she’s been known to do when she’s been uncomfortable with a situation or a question? Yes, a Kamala cackle did briefly make an appearance, but she did generally keep her composure. Would Trump take the 2020 election bait or focus on the future? He took the bait when he was pressed on it by the moderators. Would Kamala be convincing in her recent messaging aimed at sounding more moderate than the ultra-progressive she’s historically been – a senator whose voting record was only 0.3% different than Bernie Sanders while she was in the senate? Doubtful. It was clear that she had a series of scripted answers. I’m not sure how relatable and convincing they were. Would Trump keep the focus on the Biden-Harris administration's policy failures juxtaposed to his successful agenda as president, or would he allow his persona to become the focus of the debate? Trump did a pretty good job of prosecuting the case against the current administration – though there was a bit too much of a focus on Biden specifically at times. As Harris made a point of saying – she's not Joe Biden. What would Kamala’s closing argument be? It was an effort to distinguish herself from Biden and Trump as an optimistic new generational leader. Would Trump make his closing argument the obvious one (channeling Ronald Reagan in asking if you’re better off today than you were four years ago)? No. His closing argument was all about Harris not having done, as vice president, all of the things she now says she wants to do. While calling Biden and Harris the worst president and vice president of all time. And that takes me to...
- The reaction. “Painful, I wish I hadn’t watched it”. That was the reaction of my wonderful wife Ashley. “Trump had a bad night”. That was the consensus from a larger group of conservative friends and family via text messages. Trump started well when the focus was on the economy. He had his moments again with the focus on border policy. Harris largely performed better through the other segments. That was my reaction to the debate. It was a given that Harris would have a better night than Biden did in his debate. And she clearly did. Related, immediately following the first debate CNN’s flash poll conducted by accredited pollster SSRS, found that by a margin of 67% to 33% viewers of the debate thought Trump outperformed Biden. What that showed is that a third of Americans have TDS and would under no circumstances admit that Donald Trump won a debate. That’s the baseline with which to start from in evaluating the instant reaction to the debate. This time around in that same poll...CNN/SSRS found...that by a margin of 63% to 37% viewers of the debate thought Harris outperformed Trump – close to a full reversal of the splits from the first debate.